This Sunday is the season six finale of HBO’s Game of Thrones. There will be a lot to analyze come Monday, especially with (probably) only 13 episodes left until the series finale. But there’s some stuff to talk about now, too. Namely, predictions — what’s going to happen in the mysterious “The Winds of Winter”? All we have is a vague plot description (“Cersei faces her trial”), and some stills. That’s it.
Here are our totally serious, 100 percent accurate finale predictions.
My prediction — more of a prayer than a prediction, I suppose — is that a significant chunk of the episode with be devoted to Wun-Wun’s funeral, complete with a moving eulogy by Tormund. Everything else is gravy. Give me this one thing and we’re cool. — Brian Grubb
A large chunk of this season’s scenes involving the Mother of Dragons has been giving fans what they want to see. Dany’s not technically fireproof? She happens to get back to Meereen just in the nick of time? The other two dragons just happen to break free as Drogon arrives? Stop thinking and enjoy the badassery, dammit. So with that in mind, I’m predicting that Bran is able to see the future and we get a taste of the end times: Dragons vs White Walkers. Because how cool is that gonna look? — Dejen Isaac
Margaery is just too damn smart and conniving for her own good, and she’s been playing the Lannisters for too long. Cersei has spent the better part of two seasons backed into a corner but she’s still dangerous as ever. Unfortunately she’s also prone to making huge mistakes. My prediction is that Aerys’ squirreled-away wildfire will be the Chekov’s gun that ends up being both Cersei’s revenge and undoing. She may take out the High Sparrow and Tyrells, but she’s going to pay the price with Tommen, finally fulfilling the Maggy the Frog’s prophecy. Oh, and there’s no way Zombie Mountain makes it out alive either, because clearly someone has it out for giants this season, gentle and otherwise. — Stacey Ritzen
In the opening of “The Winds of Winter,” Theon will be out for a stroll in Meereen when he’ll be greeted by a familiar face – one of Ramsay Bolton’s vicious dogs. Terrified, Theon will cowardly accept that this is his end and no one will save him from the death that he should have suffered long ago. However, the dog has other plans. Attached to its collar is a note from Sansa Stark, which explains that the dog carries a gift for Theon, wrapped up in a small pouch. The gift? Ramsay’s severed penis. As Theon sighs and even chuckles, the dog gives him a big, slobbery kiss on his face. — Ashley Burns
Tommen’s been making a poor show of leading the Seven Kingdoms since Joffrey’s death. He’s caved to the pressures of the High Sparrow and his band of fanatics, fallen prey to Margaery’s manipulations, and thoroughly displeased his mother by subjecting her to a trial without combat. Cersei’s desperate and that’s never a good thing. If the theories are true and she decides to say f*ck it and burn the entire Sept to the ground, it’s likely that Tommen will be a bit crispier and a lot more dead than he is now. So far, Maggy the Frog’s two-for-two with her prophecy warning Cersei that all of her kids were doomed to die. We’re not betting against her. — Jessica Toomer
Jon Snow will hug Ghost while Sansa wards off Littlefinger’s demands for marriage. Then, Jamie is going to be like, “I wanna go home.” We’ll cut to Sandor Clegane, who will do something badass, and more importantly, find Lady Stoneheart, chillin’. We’ll bounce across the sea where the Unsullied pass out Dramamine to the Dothraki horde in preparation for their trip to Westeros. Arya will get a minute or less of screen time (she’s also likely on a boat), before we shift to Varys getting off a boat, which will then lead us to the Greyjoy uncle on a boat being upset at his niece and nephew taking his other boats which will lead to his death by dragon mouth. — Jason Nawara
It is definitely foolish to hope for something optimistic after a surprisingly upbeat “Battle of the Bastards” (how “Giantsbae” and the Onion Dad made it through I will never know), but it would be SO badass for Arya to somehow make it to The Twins and give all of the Freys the Red Wedding treatment. After witnessing the deaths of Cat and Robb, she deserves the kill more than anyone. Why else bother with all of that [cough cough pointless cough cough] training if not to cross another name off her list? We probably won’t see Arya again this season, but A Girl can dream. — Alyssa Fikse
After Cersei’s plan to blow up King’s Landing with wildfire fails, an angry High Sparrow rounds up Cersei, Jamie, Maergary, The Mountain, Qyburn, and Loras Tyrell, and places them in a semi-circle, forces them to their knees, and pulls out a baseball bat wrapped in barb wire before offering a 12-minute speech on the sins they have committed against the Sparrows. As punishment, the High Sparrow decides to kill one of them with a bat. The camera angle quickly switches to the perspective of the purported victim, and through a knight’s mask, we see a large hand reach out and grab the bat before impact. From a different angle, the camera rapidly pulls back as we watch The Mountain use the bat to beat the High Sparrow into a puddle of blood and broken bones while a new Geto Boys’ track, “Damn It Feels Good to Be a Lannister,” plays over the final moments. — Dustin Rowles
It should be obvious to everyone what will happen in the finale. Dany, Tyrion, Daario, and an out-of-nowhere Jorah fly to Westeros on her dragons while performing a cover of “Fortunate Son” in an extended musical montage. Daario and Jorah are sharing a dragon. Varys actually left Meereen to join a secret Dothraki fight club and is leaving his friends and allies to fend for themselves. This will be an extensive subplot in the seventh season that doesn’t end up mattering in the slightest, but you should still pay attention.
Over in Westeros, Ghost uses his previously unknown power of necromancy to raise the other Direwolves from the dead. The pack bands together to take over the Riverlands, since the Starks are struggling to exact any actual revenge against the Lannisters for the murder of half their family. If you want something done right, get the Direwolves to do it.
Arya is just chilling on a boat back to Westeros the entire time, which is surprisingly less boring than her storyline from the past two seasons. Jaime Lannister finally bucks up and travels North to meet Brienne, only to receive news that Cersei is burning King’s Landing to the ground right before he and Brienne are about to make out. Cersei does indeed burn the entire city to the ground, starting with the Red Keep, and accidentally kills Tommen with the blaze. She and Margaery are the only people left alive by the end of things, and the episode cuts to black just as they are about to fight to the death for who gets to be the Queen of a pile of ash. — Whitney McIntosh
Moments before Cersei finally faces the “trial” promised by the finale’s cryptic synopsis, everything stops. The action, the dialogue, the music — everything. Then, from behind a prop in the far left corner of the shot, George R.R. Martin appears and walks toward the camera in the style of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Turns out, all of HBO’s Game of Thrones has been a ruse, a springboard from which Martin (who obviously isn’t writing The Winds of Winter) can abandon his day job as a novelist and embrace his first true love: being a TV presenter. You’ve been warned, Chris Hardwick and Ryan Seacrest. — Andrew Husband
What is the “Winds of Winter”? We don’t know! The book isn’t out yet (you might have read about this). But it probably has something to do with the Wall, and it’s going to be big, and, for the show at least, very expensive. This is a season finale, after all. Now that Jon vs. Ramsay has been settled, it’s time for Game of Thrones to pivot and focus on what really matters: the approaching White Walkers. They’re more dangerous than even the most sadistic bastard, and my crackpot theory is that the season ends with the Night King blowing the Horn of Winter, destroying the Wall in the process. It would be a spectacular ending to a fantastic season. Also, George R.R. Martin’s gonna pull a Beyoncé, and release The Winds of Winter on Saturday — Josh Kurp
